For the period 2015-2019, within the metropolitan government agreement, the International and Cooperation Area has gained solid ground within the structure of the AMB (Barcelona Metropolitan Area). This area has worked on the need to have a coordinated international strategy, especially in Europe and the Mediterranean, while seeking the engagement of all the AMB services and ensuring its presence in the international debate forums and decision-making spaces.
The International and Cooperation Area has brought together the AMB's international action under one roof, which until then was distributed among different areas of governance. Vice-President Alfred Bosch was at the helm was until November 2018, and starting in December 2018, it has been led by the Vice-President and Mayor of Sant Vicenç dels Horts, Maite Aymerich.
The establishment of the metropolitan government in 2015 launched a phase in which it pledged to reach out to and position the AMB in the world with the following purposes: (1) to cooperate and work as a network to strengthen the role of metropolitan areas in the European Union and other international bodies; (2) to identify actions which respond to the social, economic and humanitarian crises and contribute to rectifying social inequalities in our cities; (3) to offer, along with the metropolitan town halls, expertise and knowledge of urban agglomerations and metropolitans governments in an effort to support to foster their development; and (4) to establish opportunities for international cooperation and collaboration for the AMB, town halls, economic and social stakeholders and universities within the metropolitan area.
The establishment of the metropolitan government in 2015 launched a phase in which it pledged to reach out to and position the AMB in the world with the following purposes: (1) to cooperate and work as a network to strengthen the role of metropolitan areas in the European Union and other international bodies; (2) to identify actions which respond to the social, economic and humanitarian crises and contribute to rectifying social inequalities in our cities; (3) to offer, along with the metropolitan town halls, expertise and knowledge of urban agglomerations and metropolitans governments in an effort to support to foster their development; and (4) to establish opportunities for international cooperation and collaboration for the AMB, town halls, economic and social stakeholders and universities within the metropolitan area.
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The AMB and the new global agenda
The AMB appeared for the first time before the United Nations headquarters. In July 2019, Vice-President Alfred Bosch spoke at the United Nations headquarters during the High Level Political Forum to present the role of the AMB and its commitment to fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on a metropolitan scale.
The main objective is to create smarter cities and to provide environments which make it possible to work with companies, as well as to showcase the role of citizens in this process. In this vein, it is important to underscore the importance of public-private cooperation within a climate of trust.
The AMB is already aligned with the SDGs based on different policies and services which it develops on a metropolitan scale, such as the measures that the metropolitan administration has launched to guarantee the air quality in the territory, which entails actions such as establishing low-emissions zones during episodes of pollution, in addition to promoting sustainable mobility.
On the other hand, with regard to the territorial sphere, the AMB is developing projects that fit with SDGs 15 and 17, such as drawing up the metropolitan Urban Master Plan (abbreviated PDU), the projects to arrange and improve the Llobregat and Besòs Rivers and the coastline action strategy. In environmental matters, the AMB is a benchmark administration (in relation to SDG12) in terms of both waste management and the complete water cycle, as well as fostering renewable energies. Finally, on international cooperation matters, the AMB develops its projects with all 17 SDGs, including the focus on the Mediterranean region with networking projects like MedCities (development of sustainable urban areas) and care of refugees (with programmes like "We Have Rights, We Weave Freedoms").
The presence of the AMB in the United Nations' New York headquarters is a step forward in the institution's strategy to respond to the New Urban Agenda.
More information:
High Level Political Forum
SDGs
International Area -
The AMB's international conference on the New Urban Agenda
The establishment of new directives and a new structure accompanied by a roadmap have facilitated coordination with other public administrations locally and internationally. And the international activity was influenced by the approval of the New Urban Agenda at the United Nations Conference in Quito in 2016, Habitat III.
Habitat III, along with Agenda 2030, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement (2015) shape a new global agenda which has determined and will continue to determine metropolitan policies in the future.
In this sense, during the Post-Habitat III conference, the future challenges of cities were discussed. AMB's contribution to the New Urban Agenda in 2018, alongside the metropolitan town halls that participated, established its international positioning, as reflected in the document entitled Institutional Recognition of Metropolitan Areas, with the goal of aligning the AMB's international strategy with the Sustainable Development Goals in the United Nations' Agenda 2030.
The participants in the conference included world-class international experts, such as the former President of Colombia, Ernesto Samper, Gary Gadner, Caroline Moser, Salvador Rueda, representatives of large cities like New York, Jakarta, Seoul, Oslo, Santiago de Chile, Antalya, Bamako and Nouakchott, and the support of UN-Habitat and different international networks like Metropolis, MedCities and UCLG.
Also worth highlighting is the AMB's presence with a stand along with the Government of Catalonia, the Barcelona Provincial Council and the Barcelona Town Hall at the gatherings around the Urban Agenda held in Quito (October 2016) and Kuala Lumpur (February 2018). This participation helped share the role of the AMB, make contacts and open new avenues of work, such as the close relationship with the UN-Habitat metropolitan programme, reinforced cooperation with the metropolitan government of Seoul in the sphere of public space and the identification of new partners for the AMB's international cooperation projects.
In terms of the new global agenda, we have worked to identify policies in the AMB's services which are aligned with the 17 SDGs based on the evaluation report of the alignment of the AMB's strategic planning and the working plans of the United Nations' Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.
In this vein of promoting and incorporating the SDGs as one of the factors that brings global meaning to the metropolitan policies, we have participated in the International Conference on Sustainable Development Goals: Actors and Implementation, organised and promoted by the Global University Network for Innovation (September 2017).
More information:
Habitat III
Agenda 2030
17 Sustainable Development Goals
2015 Paris Climate Agreement
International Conference on Sustainable Development Goals: Actors and Implementation
Global University Network for Innovation
Post-Habitat III conference, Future Challenges of Metropolises: A Contribution to the New Urban Agenda
Institutional recognition of metropolitan areas
SDGs
International Area -
European financing for metropolitan projects
One of the ways of garnering international recognition and developing new metropolitan projects is through European financing. For this mandate, the AMB and the Government of Catalonia negotiated and signed the agreement to develop actions in priority strands 2, 4 and 6 within the framework of the ERDF's Operational Programme under the Investment in Growth and Employment Objective in Catalonia for the period 2014-2020, with a total investment of 72.6 million euros, 30 million of which comes from ERDF funds.
The AMB is responsible for managing this agreement, which allows 10 metropolitan projects to be financed:
- Smart Cities metropolitan platform
- Socio-environmental recovery of metropolitan river spaces
- Improving energy efficiency and lowering emissions by changing conventional lights for LED technology
- Low-emissions zone
- Metropolitan network of charging points for electric vehicles
- Bicibox safe bicycle parking
- Installing photovoltaic panels in public facilities
- Bicivia lane
- Metropolitan network of the cultural and industrial heritage
- Metropolitan network of urban parks with heritage value
On the other hand, the interlocution and presence of all the areas of the AMB as well as metropolitan town halls in European institutions, networks and organisations has been fostered, and European financing has been secured for metropolitan projects.
In this mandate, the AMB has participated in 29 European and international projects worth a total of 3.72 million euros (European regional cooperation, RDI, environment and other EU programmes), which have provided 2.7 million euros in financing within the framework of European programmes like Interreg, Urbact, Horizon 2020 and Life, among others. On the date this report closed, different projects were still pending resolution. It is noteworthy that all the areas of the AMB have participated in European and international projects.
More information:
ERDF
European and international projects
Interreg
URBACT
Horizon 2020
Life -
Promoting the metropolitan networks and fostering the AMB's international outreach
This avenue of intervention has taken shape, after months of previous work, in the conclusions of the Metropolitan Areas Internationalization Strategies seminar (June 2016) with the threefold objective of: (1) learning about and discussing internationalisation strategies and policies, (2) disseminating these strategies, and (3) contributing to the debate on the role that local and metropolitan governments should play in the international arena.
This seminar welcomed experts from cities like New York, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Montreal, Montevideo, Medellín, Turin, Vienna, Quito, Manchester and Lyon, as well as local actors like the Town Hall of El Prat, Viladecans, the business organisation PIMEC, IBEI, Metropolis and MedCities, among others. The debates in this seminar also informed the position paper A Place at the Global Table, which the Allas Network submitted as part of Habitat III to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban-Ki Moon.
In this same vein, a board of experts was created, made up of public, private and civil society representatives and experts, who met every six months to analyse the evolution of the international agenda and any opportunities that may arise.
More information:
Metropolitan Areas Internationalization Strategies
A Place at the Global Table
Allas-
Participation in international networks
MedCities: During this mandate, the Network of Mediterranean Cities became more consolidated to accompany the MedCities association (57 cities and metropolitan areas from 15 Mediterranean countries) via the coordination and management of the MedCities general secretariat.
The network has been equipped with the tools it needs to fulfil its mission, with investment totalling over 1.1 million euros which has been used to attract another 1.5 million euros worth of projects from other financers.
The AMB has served as the Vice-President and Secretary of the Association. During this mandate, MedCities has gone from 29 to 57 members, has supported the development of 8 City Strategies, has provided technical assistance 24 times, and has implemented 12 projects in urban policies and 3 projects within the sphere of integrating Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
It has also organised 27 training sessions targeted at more than 1,000 people, and MedUrbantools has been created, a unique source of documental and methodological resources on urban policies in the Mediterranean.
Worth noting is the celebration of the 25th anniversary of MedCities (October 2016) and the General Assembly held in 2018, which welcomed a long list of mayors from the region, the Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean and the President of the Committee of the Regions. MedCities also works with other important institutional and sectoral networks in the Mediterranean.
MedCities has also participated in different political initiatives to request more funds for Mediterranean cooperation, and it has acted as a lobby before the European Union to call for more attention and the contribution of more funds to the region. This lobby was brought into clear focus with the position paper The Interreg for the Future, developed jointly with Cities for Cohesion, which was submitted to the European Commissioner for Regional Policy (January 2018), as well as the joint Mediterranean Cooperation Alliance declaration, signed in Barcelona by different regional networks (February 2019).
Metropolis:The International and Cooperation Area manages the AMB's participation in the World Association of the Major Metropolises (Metropolis), which currently has 139 members from different regions in the world. The AMB is the co-president and is in charge of public space issues. In this mandate, the organisation and role of the AMB were enhanced.
Metropolis fosters the generation of knowledge (see the Metropolis Observatory below) and the exchange of experiences and projects. In this mandate, the AMB has managed 3 projects:
- MetroAirports, on airports' impact on metropolises, with Atlanta, Paris and the Airports Regions Conference
- MEGA, on energy transition strategies, with Montevideo and Lyon
- Climate Metropole, in the sphere of climate change strategies, with Berlin and Lyon
Metropolis has also participated actively in the global events and debates on sustainable urban development held by the United Nations, including the Global Taskforce and United Cities and Local Governments, as well as other networks and benchmark centres both locally and globally. The investment during the period 2015-2019 was €854,252.
European Metropolitan Authorities (EMA). In 2015, the AMB started a lobbying effort with other European metropolitan areas with the purposes of making the priorities of metropolitan areas reach the European institutions and working on projects of common interest. This network, which brought together the presidents and elected representatives of 15 cities, has increased to 40 European cities and has held new gatherings in Turin (2016), Warsaw (2017), Rome (2018) and Lyon (2019), where topics of interest were debated, such as metropolitan governance, financing of metropolitan areas, sustainable transport and mobilities policies, competitiveness and social cohesion.
It is worth noting that the Vice President of the International and Cooperation Area and the EMA members met in Brussels with the European Commissioner of Regional Policy, Corina Cretu, the President of the Committee of the Regions and representatives of the European Parliament to share information about the EMA and ask for more funds for metropolitan regions in the European budget.
The EMA has also generated study trips, exchanges of experiences and work on joint European projects like SMART-MR, Meaning or Sub-Urban.
United Cities and Local Governments: The AMB has joined the World Council of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) for the first time. As a member of the UCLG, it has participated in its meetings and in projects like preparing the metropolitan chapter of the report of the Global Observatory on Local Democracy and Decentralization (GOLD).
CIDEU: The Ibero-American Centre of Strategic Urban Development (CIDEU) is an association of cities in Spain and Latin America made up of 154 members. It has headquartered in Barcelona, and the AMB participated by financing training workshops in metropolitan matters. The investment during this period was €22,000.
More information:
MedCities
MedUrbanTools
Metropolis
European Metropolitan Authorities
United Cities and Local Governments
CIDEU -
Promotion of knowledge and training on metropolises on an international scale
As a patron of the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI) and the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), institutions focused on research and training, the AMB has established working avenues on local and urban matters by signing agreements with a total investment in the period of €80,000 and €888,000, respectively.
Avenues of work related to the AMB's management areas were launched through publications, research, training and education for AMB staff, town halls and other local stakeholders.
More information:
IBEI
CIDOB -
The Metropolis Observatory
Metropolis has spearheaded the Metropolis Observatory, financed by the AMB, to promote a space of reflection, thinking and proposals on the future challenges of metropolitan policies. This materialised in an agreement with the London School of Economics (LSE), which has worked on 38 indicators from 51 members and a series of technical articles with the following topics:
- 01 Metropolitan trends in the world
- 02 Metropolises addressing the global agendas
- 03 The metropolitan scale of resilience
- 04 Egalitarian metropolitan spaces
- 05 Blockchain, a tool for metropolitan governance?
- 06 Financing metropolitan public policies and services
Metropolis Observatory
Technical articles -
Welcoming international delegations
The AMB regularly hosts international delegations who want to learn about the institution, how it works and the policies it manages. These delegations come from all over the world and combine information on different services with on-the-ground visits. During this mandate, a total of 57 delegations from different regions around the world were welcomed:
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Participation in international networks
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Promotion of socially-conscious policies and progress in cooperation programmes
The Metropolitan Action Plan (PAM) approved by the 2015-2019 mandate posed 2 major challenges to achieving the objectives of the governing team for the period 2015 to 2019:
- To promote a high-quality public cooperation policy that is capable of integrating all the AMB's international cooperation actions.
- To attain 0.7% spending on cooperation out of AMB's total own revenues, which total approximately 2 million euros.
Gràfic % respecte a ingressos propis
In this mandate, a new cooperation policy has been defined focused on people, the guarantee of rights, the AMB's competence and the geographic areas interest, with a budget allocation of 6.2 million euros for the entire period. The main social concertation tool in the sphere of international cooperation was renewed: the Cooperation Master Plan 2017-2019.-
The Cooperation Master Plan
The Cooperation Master Plan was developed with the participation of the town halls, public and private organizations in the region, and local partner organisations wherever the AMB works, and the AMB's cooperation strategy was aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from Agenda 2030, the New Urban Agenda and other international conventions like the Paris Climate Change Agreement and CEDAW.
The impetus for participation, coordination and concertation on cooperation matters was implemented at 3 levels:
- Externally, with local agents with expertise in the AMB's areas. Work was conducted in coordination with public institutions like the Catalan Development Cooperation Agency, the Coordination Commission of Local Entities, the Barcelona Provincial Council and the Barcelona Town Hall, with whom a debate was held on public cooperation policies. Several agreements were reached with the Catalan Development Fund, on whose executive board the AMB sits. Likewise, work was undertaken with different NGOs (40 organisations), universities and research centres (UB, UPC, IBEI and AUB), along with training centres (La Massana, local secondary and primary schools) and several local companies who have shared their experiences and working methods.
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With the metropolitan town halls. Support was given to the metropolitan town halls via coordinated cooperation and a metropolitan education programme for global citizenship.
The coordinated cooperation among the metropolitan town halls and the AMB is crucial to improving decentralised cooperation. Likewise, it strengthens the town halls and makes it possible for them to develop high-quality local actions with the commitment to international cooperation. - 3. Internally within the AMB. With the participation and involvement of new areas within the AMB in defining and implementing the projects from the technical cooperation perspective. During this mandate, the areas of Environment, Mobility and Transport, Public Space, Urban Planning and General Services were involved in international cooperation at different levels.
Biannually, two calls for proposals have been announced: for international cooperation programmes and for education for global citizenship (EGC) programmes; one for NGOs and another targeted at metropolitan town halls.
Town Hall Subsidies Subsidised resources for Cooperation 164.625,23 Subsidised resources for Education for Global Citizenship 35.390,00 NGO Subsidies Subsidised resources for Cooperation 494.848,40 Subsidised resources for Education for Global Citizenship 305.136,37 Total 1.000.000,00
Gràfic Destinació de les subvencions
In 2015, the AMB took on a serious commitment to refugees in the Mediterranean, which has translated into the implementation of a specific cooperation policy for refugees. First, it has provided support to the eastern Mediterranean countries that are taking in refugees (Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan) by implementing projects focused on the rights of refugees and environmental sustainability (water and waste). Secondly, it has worked in Syria, the main focal point of forced displacement because of the war that started in 2011. Fifty-one percent of the resources for cooperation projects were earmarked for these regions.
Gràfic Recursos econòmics per país 2015-2018
The more than 30 years' experience of the former Association of Municipalities until recently, with the establishment of the AMB in 2012, has positioned the organisation as a benchmark in metropolitan governance. For this reason, the direct cooperation has included a sectoral working strand.
Actions and agreements on municipal governance were undertaken with the goal of supporting processes to establish and consolidate metropolitan areas, especially in the metropolitan area of Maputo (Mozambique) and the metropolitan area of San Salvador (El Salvador). Actions were carried out with these two metropolitan areas in the spheres of mobility and safe, equitable and sustainable public spaces.
Likewise, projects associated with technical cooperation and the exchange of experiences in managing risks were undertaken in Portoviejo (Ecuador) and with water management in West Africa and in Quito (Ecuador) and Bogotá (Colombia) with Metropolis. Requests were also received for delegations and seminars in the metropolitan area of Medellín, different cities in Tangier and Saint Louis (Senegal), among others.
Recursos públics per àmbit de treball
Extending direct cooperation towards the Mediterranean and Africa meant identifying and forging relationships with numerous entities in these regions, such as the Conselho de Maputo and the Metropolitan Transport Agency of Maputo (AMT). Likewise, relationships were strengthened with COAMSS-OPAMSS, the metropolitan area of San Salvador, in Central America, with which strategic actions were undertaken at the level of metropolitan governance.
First metropolitan education for global citizenship (EGC) programme
With the goal of promoting critical awareness and commitment with citizenship regarding inequalities and global conflicts, support was provided to initiatives by NGOs and metropolitan town halls, and the first metropolitan education for global citizenship (EGC) programme was implemented.
The AMB rolled out its own programme on education for global citizenship, entitled "We Have Rights, We Weave Freedoms: Human rights in the local world", with the goal of promoting knowledge and the defence of human rights in the local world.
Eleven municipalities in the AMB joined the programme, along with different organisations and municipal groups (primary and secondary schools, groups and associations for youths and the elderly, as well as cultural and sports entities), and we worked with them to develop actions based on critical and artistic pedagogy in the region. In this mandate, the work focused on the rights of refugees in the Mediterranean.
Support was also provided to the Cities Defending Human Rights programme, in which several metropolitan municipalities are taking part by inviting defenders of human rights to spread their claims and experiences in the defence of human rights. In this programme, the AMB has organised several activities in conjunction with the IBEI to reach university students.
At the same time, efforts were made to move towards incorporating transversal principles in all the strategies and actions carried out: the focus on rights, governance and democratic governability, empowerment and equity between men and women, diversity, the culture of non-violence and peace and environmental sustainability. Likewise, a reflection was undertaken and work strengthened with the local partners and teams from the AMB municipalities via training, reflection materials and joint work.
More information:
Agenda 2030
The New Urban Agenda and other international conventions
Paris Agreement on Climate Change
CEDAW
We Have Rights, We Weave Freedoms: Human rights in the local world
2017-2019 International Development Cooperation Master Plan -
Efficient management and ongoing monitoring
Planning, monitoring and participative, ongoing evaluation tools were developed (identification study, evaluation of the Master Plan, participative planning of the We Have Rights, We Weave Freedoms programme and the annual systematisation of the Master Plan, among others) in order to help systematise the processes and results, analyses, strategy development, planning, learning and evaluation.
The new approach focusing on direct cooperation, coordinated cooperation and the educational for global citizenship programme, along with the communication efforts, have enabled the AMB to position itself as a benchmark entity with a profile that totally matches its authorities in international cooperation.
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Communication
In order to disseminate the objectives and actions carried out by the International and Cooperation Area team, a communication strategy was designed which entailed reworking the website, publishing a monthly newsletter and joining the social media Twitter and Facebook in order to raise awareness of the metropolitan area's international presence.
Furthermore, along with the AMB's press office, a notable presence was maintained in the media with written and radio dispatches to reinforce information and awareness, while also as a way to be accountable to citizens.
More information:
Monthly newsletter
Twitter
Facebook